


Troubled Face, Headphones On

by GaHoolianGirl



Category: Free!
Genre: Acceptance, Banter, Best Friends, Coming Out, Fluff and Humor, Friendship/Love, Gen, Heart-to-Heart, I started this like 6 months ago, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, It's shippy-er at the end than at the beginning, M/M, None from either character involved though, Pre-Slash, This is post canon but like they haven't graduated quite yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2017-05-22
Packaged: 2018-11-03 15:33:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10970205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GaHoolianGirl/pseuds/GaHoolianGirl
Summary: Using English music and Rin's ability to translate said music, Sousuke shares something deeply personal with Rin, and gets a much diferent reaction that he had pictured.“This is how you tell me, really?”“You didn’t grow up with your parents talking about how every one of your ‘kind’ is an abomination."





	Troubled Face, Headphones On

**Author's Note:**

> Back in December, I think I was looking for LGTB+ songs for my GSA, and came across one thats used in the fic. I was in a Sourin mood at the time, and started writing this. This isn't a song fic, but rather the song itself is played in the story (the title is a lyric from it) This has the usual headcanons that I roll with: Sousuke is gay, Rin is bi, Rin has accepting a parents, Sousuke doesn't. I could explain more, but it's easiest if you just read the fic for yourself.

While Rin was studying at his desk like a good student, Sousuke was on his bunk with his earphones in, lazing around as natural overachievers such as himself are often wont to do. He quietly scrolled through his music library. He’d recently gotten a lot of music recommendations from someone he knew on the internet, but he purposefully perjured himself by saying he knew more English than he actually did, and hence that’s the language they were all in. And Rin just so happened to know a lot of English...

Because he wasn’t actually playing any music, he could hear Rin shut his book. Was this really how he wanted to tell Rin? It’d be a lot easier to do it this way...he’d always imagined telling his best friend something so personal would be more difficult and dramatic, but asking Rin to translate some English lyrics just felt so simple and easy.

“Oi, Rin,” he called out, pulling his earbud out. Rin had finished cleaning up his supplies and looked up to the top bunk.

Sousuke held up his phone, “I need your help translating something.”

“I already helped you with your homework---”

“It’s not homework, it’s something personal. Just come ‘ere.”

Rin complied with a raised eyebrow, pulling himself up by the bar on the top bunk and precariously resting his feet on his own. Without asking (he knew he didn’t have to) he put one earbud in Rin’s ear and clicked play, not letting him see the name.

 _Troubled face_ _  
Headphones on_

 _Forgetting time and place_ _  
_ _all he wanted_

 _Feeling stuck_  
_Set him free_  
_Running out of luck_ _  
on his knees_

Rin scowled at these lyrics as he parroted them back to Sousuke. They evoke memories of one of their touchier subjects.  
  
_First time he kissed a boy_  
_He had never never known_  
_cover up is what they told_  
_Feel so cold_  
  
_First time he kissed a boy_  
_He had never never loved_  
_walks on a curvy road_ _  
Feel so cold_

Rin’s eyes opened wide and his voice faltered. Sousuke let his head fall back onto the pillow with a sigh.  
  
_Keeping back_  
_the ghost inside_  
_Locked him in a pack_  
_all his life_  
_all his life_  
  
Earbud yanked out of his ear (and consequently pulling out the one in Sousuke’s), Rin took the phone and read the title.

“You knew what it was called at least, right?”

Sousuke’s eyes were shut tight and he didn’t so much as incline his head in Rin’s direction, “Yeah. My friend told me all their titles in Japanese. I knew exactly what type of songs they were.”

There was a moment of silence and Sousuke wondered if he really fucked up his life now. Sure he couldn’t be at Rin’s side in the pool but maybe now he couldn’t be with him at all...

“This is how you tell me, really?”

He cracked an eye open, “You’re awfully calm?”

Rin laughed, pushing against Sousuke’s bicep so he’d make room for him. He hoisted himself up onto the bunk, putting his head on the pillow next to Sousuke like they would during their sleepovers so many years ago, “It’d take more than this to ruin a lifetime of friendship. You’ve always been there for me, so I ought to be there for you.”

A shuttering breath that he didn’t realize he was hold released from Sousuke’s throat. When he was at Tokitsu, a group of his peers had found out about his sexuality and it did...not go well. They didn’t spread it but that was only because he was too valuable to the swim team to besmirch his reputation. Didn’t mean they were particularly kind to him, however. He’d received nasty letters in his locker and threats about what they’d do to him once he graduated. Not that he’d cared about them or what they thought they would do.

But if he lost Rin’s approval, he didn’t know what he’d do. He’d spent his whole teenage life hoping to see him again, working to be his equal...he didn’t lose him over his shoulder and he didn’t want to lose him over this.

“Just men?” Rin asked, surprisingly casual.

“Yeah,” Sousuke replied, shocked at how casual he felt as well, “I broke a few girls hearts at my old school. And after the cultural festival too.”

“Hhm,” Rin’s grunt didn’t betray any sort of opinion on his answer, “How long have you known?”

“Since we were kids. My whole life, really. I actually told my parents when I was seven or eight but I got the ‘You have to like girls, get married one day, and gay people are freaks of nature’ thing. They taught me to keep my mouth shut at an early age.”

His parents, while he couldn’t keep himself from loving them _completely,_ were some of the most vocally homophobic people he’d ever come across, so telling them was not an option until he was completely self sufficient (re: until they weren’t paying for his expensive private school and then college).

“Well, if your parents ever throw you out, I’m sure my Mom could put you up,” Rin smiled the smile he smiled when he was about to overwhelm someone, in or out of a race, “She’s already lived through two kids coming out to her.”

Sousuke sat up so straight and so fast his head collided directly with the ceiling. He rubbed his head, looking down at Rin in surprise, “What!?”

“I wasn’t going to tell you because I never knew how you felt about it either.”

Though Rin didn’t seem to be as nervous as Sousuke came across, there was no doubting the current relief in his eyes.

“I feel like an idiot now,” Sousuke said, lying back down, hand still on what will surely become a bruise.

“Nah, you’re not. Anyone would be scared or\f rejection.”

“You mentioned both of you?”

“Gou’s a lesbian. Our mom had the brief ‘Where did I go wrong with two not straight children!?’ period,” Rin smiled softly and sadly, “but she thought about how she lost our dad, and how she really didn’t want to lose us too. Now it’s just part of our lives.”

“That sounds nice,” Sousuke said, his voice painfully sincere. He rubbed the top of his head some more before taking it off as it no longer stung so sharply. He looked over at Rin, who was grinning at him, “...What is it?”

“You know that I was waiting for this for a long time, right?”

“Huh?”

Rin grabbed his phone again, casually scrolling through the whole playlist, “Me and Gou knew for a long time. About you being gay, I mean. Anyone not in deep denial probably did, honestly.”

Grumbling, Sousuke took his phone back, giving the songs one last once over before turning it off. He had always thought he had done a good job of hiding it, but he knew he wasn’t good actor, and also that he might be a teeny tiny bit bad at reading other people’s reactions, “So how long have you known, then? About yourself and me.”

“You? Since we were kids. You can only gush about the physiques of famous swimmers before it becomes a little obvious, man.”

“Shut up,” Sousuke muttered. Rin was right, of course. His first celebrity crush had been an Olympic swimmer, some American guy he can’t even remember the name of anymore. He had been able to pass it off as admiration to his parents, and his room was covered in posters and clippings of interviews with him.

...he maybe might have been a little obvious.

“When did I know about myself?” Rin had to pause at this, thinking seriously, “Well, I had my first crush on a guy in elementary school like you did, so probably around the same age as you?”

“Who was it?”

Before that moment, Sousuke could swear he never saw Rin turn so red, and he had known him all his life.

Rin huffed, rolling over so his back was to Sousuke, “Y-You don’t need to know.”

“Okay, you have to tell me now,” Sousuke sat up (carefully, to avoid forehead-to-ceiling contact), putting a hand on Rin’s shoulder, “Come on. I just came out to you five minutes ago, you can tell me your first crush.”

“You aren’t gonna like it.”

“Why wouldn’t I-”

“It was you.”

Oh.

_Oh._

There was a pause, before Sousuke let out what was suspiciously like a sigh of relief, “That’s all?”

Rin turned back around, looking indignant, “Of course I’d be nervous telling you that you were my first real crush! Isn’t that awkward!?”

“Not really, since I’d say the same thing.”

“...huh?”

“Honestly, I felt a little guilty about crushing on you, because I was as thick as a rock and thought you were straight, so you’ve made my day here in more ways than one,” he laid back down, “I really thought this was going to go differently.”

Rin needed a moment to come to terms with the fact that their childhood crushes on each other had been mutual, but once he did, Sousuke’s last comment concerned him, “Why did you think I was going to react so badly?”

Sousuke smiled at him sorrowfully, “You didn’t grow up with your parents talking about how every one of your ‘kind’ is an abomination. It’s not something I can just...shrug off like everything else. I’m lucky that I still managed to come to terms with it despite that. I talked to some people on the internet who hated themselves for years before they could accept who they are.”

That put a pensive look on Rin’s face, as if he was reevaluating his stance on this subject in the span of a few seconds. Of course he knew that they didn’t live in the most accepting place in the world, but the concept of extreme homophobia had been just that to him--- a concept. He hadn’t thought of it as something his closest friend had been going through.

“During break, you’re coming home with me and Gou instead of back to your place. And you’re going to sit down and have a nice long chat with my mom.”

“Why-”

“She’d like to know when she’s getting another kid.”

“Rin, what---”

“I mean, she already loves you more than me, so she won’t have a hard time accepting it, but---”

“ _Rin!_ ”

“Hhm?”

“Why is your mom going to adopt me?”

“That’s simple,” Rin’s grin was as pointy as ever, “You’re not graduating before you’re accepted by a parent. If you’re parents have their heads on backwards, then my mom is just going to have to do. She’s been bugging me about seeing you since you’ve been back anyway.”

“I...” choking up, Sousuke put his hand over his eyes. When he spoke, it was softly, “Thanks.”

“It’s no problem. You don’t deserve to suffer for something you can’t help. What are best friends,” _and maybe still mutual crushes_ , Sousuke thought, “for?”

After all that heart-to-heart-ing, Sousuke was emotionally spent. He put his earbuds back in, “They’re for getting out of my bunk so I can listen to music and nap.”

“Asshole,” Rin said with a laughed, but he did comply, angling himself to climb out of the bunk down to his own, “And seriously, if you ever need to talk about it, let me know. I’m always here for you.”

WIth a smile on both their lips, just as music started to flood his ears, Sousuke nodded,

“I know.”•

**Author's Note:**

> [This is the song they listen to](http://youtube.com/watch/?v=et8R5fZOARo#Kadie_Elder_-_First_Time_He_Kissed_a_Boy_%5BOfficial_Music_Video%5D), which is _Kadie Elder - First Time He Kissed a Boy_.
> 
> I've been doing a lot of pre-ship rather than shippy stuff for them the last few times I wrote them...this may or may not get a prope shippy follow up, who knows. I just like the two of them interacting.


End file.
